Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

It was just before five o’clock. He saw Detective Rhimes standing on the porch waiting for him, wearing a peach-colored business suit.

He switched off the Suburban’s engine and sat there for a moment in silence. Once he got out of the car, he was sure, nothing would be the same. Before and after. The engine block ticked as it cooled off, and the late afternoon sun was the color of burnt umber, the trees casting long shadows, clouds beginning to gather.

He noticed activity on the green carpet of lawn around the side of the house where his study was. A couple of people, a man and a woman — police techs? — were grazing slowly like sheep, heads down, looking closely for something. The woman was a squat fireplug with a wide ass, wearing a denim shirt and brand-new-looking dark blue jeans. The other one was a tall gawky guy with thick glasses, a camera around his neck.

This was real now. Not a nightmare. He wondered how they knew to look in the area nearest his study.

He tried to slow his heartbeat. Breathe in, breathe out, think placid thoughts.

Think of the first time he and Laura had gone to Maui, seventeen years ago, pre-kids, a Pleistocene era of his life. That perfect crescent of white sand beach in the sheltered cove, the absurdly blue crystal-clear water, the coconut palms rustling. A time when he felt more than just relaxed; he’d felt a deep inner serenity, Laura’s fingers interlaced with his, the Hawaiian sun beating down on him and warming him to his core.

Detective Rhimes cocked her head, saw him sitting in the car. Probably deciding whether to walk up to the Suburban or wait for him there.

They were looking for spent cartridges. He had a gut feeling.

But Eddie had retrieved them all, hadn’t he?

Nick had been such a wreck that night, so dazed and so out of it. Eddie had asked him how many shots he’d fired, and Nick had answered two. That was right, wasn’t it? The thing was such a blur that it was possible it was three. But Nick had said two, and Eddie had found two shell casings on the grass close to the French doors.

Had there been a third shot?

Had Eddie stopped when he found two, leaving one there that waited to be found by the gawky man and the fireplug woman, those experts in locating spent cartridge casings?

The lawn hadn’t been mowed, of course, because the grass was too new. The fast-talking guy from the lawn company had told him to wait a good three weeks before he let his gardener mow.

So a chunk of metal that might otherwise have been thrown up into the blades of Hugo’s wide walk-behind Gravely could well be lying there, glinting in the late-afternoon sun, just waiting for the wide-ass chick to bend over and snatch it up in her gloved hand.

He took another breath, did his best to compose himself, and got out of the Suburban.

“I’m terribly sorry to intrude on you this way,” Detective Rhimes said. She looked genuinely apologetic. “You’re very kind to let us look around. It’s such a big help to our investigation.”

“That’s all right,” Nick said. Strange, he thought, that she was keeping up the pretense. They both knew he was a suspect. He heard the rattling squawk of a crow circling overhead.

“I know you’re a very busy man.”

“You’re busy too. We’re all busy. I just want to do everything I can to help.” His mouth went dry, choking off his last couple of words, and he wondered if she’d picked up on that. He swallowed, wondered if she noticed that too.

“Thank you so much,” she said.

“Where’s your charming partner?”

“He’s busy on something else,” she said.

Nick noticed the gawky guy walking across the lawn to them, holding something aloft.

He went light headed.

The guy was holding a large pair of forceps, and as he drew closer Nick could see a small brown something gripped at the end of the forceps. When the tech showed it to Detective Rhimes, without saying a word, Nick saw that it was a cigarette butt.

Detective Rhimes nodded as the man dropped the cigarette butt into a paper evidence bag, then turned back to Nick. She went on speaking as if they hadn’t been interrupted.

Was Stadler smoking that night? Or had that been dropped there by one of the contractor’s guys, taking a cigarette break outside the house, knowing they weren’t allowed to smoke inside? He’d found some discarded Marlboro butts out there not so long ago, just before the loam was hydroseeded, picked them up with annoyance, made a mental note to say something to the contractor about the guys tossing their smokes around his lawn. Back when he had the luxury to be annoyed about such trivialities.

“I hope you don’t mind that we got started a little early,” Detective Rhimes said. “Your housekeeper refused to let my team in until you arrived, and I wanted to respect her wishes.”

Nick nodded. “That’s kind of you.” He noticed that the woman articulated her words too clearly, her enunciation almost exaggerated, hypercorrect. There was something formal and off-putting about her manner that contrasted jarringly with her shyness and reserve, a glimmering of uncertainty, a vein of sweetness. Nick prided himself on his ability to read people pretty well, but this woman he didn’t quite get. He didn’t know what to make of her. Yesterday he’d tried to charm her, but he knew that hadn’t worked.

“We’re going to need to get a set of your fingerprints,” she said.

“Sure. Of course.”

“Also, we’re going to need to take prints from everyone who lives in the house — the housekeeper, your children.”

“My children? Is that really necessary?”

“These are only what we call elimination prints.”

“My kids will freak out.”

“Oh, they might think it’s fun,” she said. A sweet smile. “Kids often find it a novelty.”

Nick shrugged. They entered the house, the high alert tone sounding quietly. The place different now: hushed, tense, like it was bracing itself for something. He heard the sound of running feet.

Julia.

“Daddy,” his daughter said, face creased with concern, “what’s going on?”

He sat down with the kids in the family room, the two of them on the couch that faced the enormous TV, Nick in the big side chair that Lucas normally staked out, which Nick thought of as his Archie Bunker chair. The Dad chair. He couldn’t remember when they’d all watched TV together last, but back when they did, Lucas always grabbed the Archie Bunker chair, to his silent annoyance.

On a trestle table next to the TV set Nick noticed the little shrine that Julia and Lucas had made to Barney: a collection of photographs of their beloved dog, his collar and tags. His favorite toys, including a bedraggled stuffed lamb — his own pet — that he slept with and carried everywhere in his slobbering mouth. There was a letter Julia had written to him in different colored markers, which began: “Barney — we miss you SO MUCH!!!” Julia had explained that the shrine was Cassie’s idea.

Lucas sat on the couch in huge baggy jeans, his legs splayed wide. The waistband of his boxer shorts was showing. He wore a black T-shirt with the word AMERIKAN in white letters on the front. Nick had no idea what that referred to. The laces on his Timberland boots were untied. He was wearing that rag on his head again. My own in-house, upper-middle-class, gated-community gangsta, Nick thought.

Lucas, staring off into the distance, said, “You gonna tell us what’s up with the five-oh?”

“The police, you mean.”

Lucas was looking out the bay window, watching the cops on the lawn.

“The police are here because of that guy who we think kept coming by and writing things inside our house,” Nick said.